Getting Even - Matthew 5:38-42

SCRIPTURE

Matthew 5:38-42

LANGUAGE

Vs 39 - resist: Oppose, stand against, withstand, set against
Vs 39 - one who is evil: hurtful, hurtful, wicked, diseased

COMMENT

Revenge. We all love it, when someone else is getting the short end of it. Posts on Social Media tell "the most excellent" stories of revenge, and people eat them up. We justify it with thoughts of, "Yes, they deserved that!" And it was the basis of the Old Testament system. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life. So the one-eyed, toothless, dead people could always be found in pairs.

But Jesus taught differently. Do not stand in opposition to those who seek to hurt you. In fact, if they slap you on one cheek, turn the other to them. If they sue you to take the shirt off your back, offer them your jacket too. If they want you to help them move out, help them move in too. Give to the beggar, loan to the slacker. But what fun is that?

What about the good old (as in Old Testament) days? Why such a radical change?

We must remember, the OT was set up as a stop-gap measure, to lead us to the time of Christ.

Jeremiah 31:31-34
 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,  not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

A new covenant. Not just new, but completely different. Not that the old was bad or wrong, but it lacked a certain Spirit. Someone does you wrong, you take your revenge, and it is over. Now, we live in a time when we should understand that WE deserve revenge. We deserve the wrath of God for what we have done to Him. Our lives are to reflect that message. As a praise to God and as a witness to those who do not believe.

That's a tough teaching for many to swallow. It does not preach well. Without repentance, without a heart that has been changed by the Gospel, it is impossible. Like trying to put a camel through the eye of a needle.

But with God, all things are possible...